Conventional semiconductor devices, such as surface mounted devices (SMDs), typically include a semiconductor die, a lead frame having external leads, and a housing which may be molded out of a plastic material. In such conventional devices, the external leads act as electrical connections for the semiconductor die as well as support for the device, while the housing provides protection for the semiconductor die by encapsulating the same. Naturally, to encapsulate the semiconductor die the housing itself must be larger than the semiconductor die. Also, the external leads often extend laterally out of the housing thus further increasing the area occupied by the device.
Due to the increase in the demand for higher performance portable appliances such as cell phones, portable computers, personal digital assistants, etc. there has been an ever increasing need for semiconductor devices that provide higher power density but occupy less space on the circuit board in order to improve performance while reducing the size. To address the need for miniaturization, chip-scale devices for semiconductor switching die such as MOSFETs have been proposed. Chip-scale packages are the size of, or nearly the size of a semiconductor die and thus occupy less area on the circuit board than the conventional semiconductor packages. To ensure that the chip-scale device will be the size of or nearly the size of the semiconductor die, the electrodes of the die are provided on only one surface so that the die may be connected to conductive pads of, for example, a printed circuit board, by, for example, appropriately positioned solder bumps. Such a configuration is conventionally referred to as a flip chip. U.S. Pat. No. 4,250,520 discloses an example of a flip chip device. The flip chip device proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,250,520 is not, however, a chip-scale device in that the substrate on which the semiconductor die is formed occupies a relatively larger area than the die itself.
Schottky diodes are components that are prevalently used in electronic circuits. It is thus desirable to have a chip-scale schottky package in order to contribute to the miniaturization of electronic circuits.